Chapter 1
The Jews in Egypt say greetings to the Jews in Jerusalem. Antiochus was killed in the temple of Nanaea. About the fire of the sacrifice hidden in a well. The prayer of Nehemiah was such that the miracle of the change of fire and water, and vice versa, was made known to the king of the Persians.
1:1 To the brothers who are throughout Egypt, the Jewish brothers who are in Jerusalem, and those who are in the region of Judea, send greetings, etc.
This Demetrius (under whom the Jerusalemites recall that they prayed) is the one established in Egypt, who reigned over Asia and Syria after Antiochus Eupator, and he too was surnamed Soter, that is, “savior.” For this man the number of years here calculated runs, that is, one hundred and sixty‑nine. For Antiochus Epiphanes, who began to reign after the one hundred and thirty‑seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks, reigned for eleven years. Antiochus Eupator for two years, and Demetrius Soter for twelve years. These are the years from the beginning of the reign of Seleucus Nicanor, king of Syria, from whom the times of the kingdom of the Greeks are reckoned, up to the end of Demetrius in the one hundred and sixty‑second year; to these are added seven years of the reign of Alexander, who is described by Pompeius Trogus as dishonorable and vicious, and unworthy of royal dignity, but since he is described as having held the kingdom for ten [seven] years, they make one hundred and sixty‑nine. Let us also put it another way: the first to reign over Asia after Alexander was Antigonus, for nineteen years; after whom Demetrius, who is also called Poliorcetes, reigned for seventeen years. Therefore this Demetrius, in the seventeenth year of his reign, surrendered himself to Seleucus, and Asia was joined to the kingdom of Syria in the twenty‑eighth year of Seleucus Nicanor. If, then, we begin now to calculate the sequence of years from the first year of the reign of Antigonus, who reigned in Asia for seven years before Seleucus began to reign in Syria, placing those same seven years before the reign of Seleucus, and in that way carry the reckoning of the years of the kingdom of Syria down to the last year of Demetrius Soter, the total of the former number is entirely found there. But it is remarkable how, in what follows, it is said that Judas, in the one hundred and eighty‑eighth year, with the council, said greetings to Aristobulus, the tutor of King Ptolemy, and gave instructions concerning the purification of the temple, which they were to carry out on the twenty‑fifth day of the month Chislev, whereas in the former book above Judas is read to have died long before, while Demetrius was still alive; indeed, according to the testimony of the chronicles he is found to have been killed in the sixth year of Demetrius. But since the authors of the books themselves are uncertain, they do not seem to differ absurdly in the calculation of times, especially since in the canonical books the edition of the Seventy Translators disagrees greatly with the Hebrew truth in the reckoning of years.
1:7 We Jews have written to you in the tribulation and violence that has come upon us in these years, etc.
Jason himself is the brother of Onias the high priest, whom the following parts of this book relate to have hastened to Antiochus Epiphanes, that is, “the noble,” because of his ambition for the high priesthood, and to have persuaded him to introduce the pagan rite in Jerusalem.
1:10 The people who are in Jerusalem and in Judea, and the senate, etc.
Aristobulus was by birth a Jew, but is acknowledged to have been a Peripatetic philosopher, who wrote Commentaries of explanations on Moses for Ptolemy Philometor, as the chronographers report, at which time Antiochus Epiphanes was ruling Syria and Asia.
1:11 We give magnificent thanks to God Himself for having been delivered by Him from great dangers, etc.
How Antiochus Epiphanes, who inflicted evils upon the Jews beyond all the kings who had been before him in Syria, lost his kingdom and ended his life, is recounted in the first book of this history; and Josephus, in the twelfth book of the Antiquities of the Jews, bears witness, saying: King Antiochus, while traversing the upper province, heard of a city of the Persians outstanding in riches, called Elymais, and of a most precious temple of Diana in it, filled with every kind of ornament; moreover, he had heard that Alexander, son of Philip, king of the Macedonians, had left there both weapons and breastplates. Stirred up, therefore, he set out against Elymais and laid siege to it; but those who were in the city were in no way frightened either by his assault or by the siege, and resisted stubbornly. Deceived in his hope, he withdrew. For when the inhabitants charged forth from the city, they put him to flight and pursued him as far as Babylon. When he arrived there, after losing many of his soldiers, one of the Jews reported to him both the destruction of the commanders whom he had left to fight against the Jews and the increase of the strength of the Jews. While this misfortune was growing under his former anxiety, he fell into an illness, and as it held him for a long time and his sufferings increased, he realized that he would die. Summoning his friends, he informed them that his disease was grievous. He confessed that he suffered these things because, afflicting the nation of the Jews, he had damaged the temple and had despised God; and, having said this, he immediately expired. Therefore I marvel at Polybius of Megalopolis, who, though he is a good man, says that Antiochus perished because he wished to devastate the temple of Diana in Persia. For he who in no way committed the sin, but only conceived it, was bound by no guilt. But if it seems to Polybius that Antiochus ended his life for that reason, it appears much more probable that the king perished because of the sacrilegious destruction of the temple at Jerusalem.